


slip up

by pngmafia



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, a slip in the painful struggle to go sober, heartbreak that still aches after 6 years, kim/harry subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pngmafia/pseuds/pngmafia
Summary: This is heartbreak formidable enough to ache this deeply even after six years, heartbreak that a man would try to drown out with alcohol to the point of destroying his entire life and memory. Heartbreak this strong is more potent than a crime. Kim doesn't have any protocol or weapon that could fight it. All he could do was hold the detective's hand.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	slip up

Harry is trying to go sober. He says this often, he swears to god he's trying, but the road to recovery is rife with withdrawal and despite his efforts, he slips sometimes. Once a week, occasionally less as he fights the dependency. Maybe he can't go cold turkey. Maybe he can't trust himself to ever have the control to drink moderately, responsibly.

But he's trying, he repeats this like a mantra. He swears he is.

Tonight Kim finds him at his office with an incriminating number of bottles on his desk, and he has to stop for a moment and just think over what he should do. 

He's done a lot of reading in how to support alcoholics these past weeks since he's transferred to the 41st. It's likely that Vicquemare and other officers have confronted or tried to console Harry already before Kim came in for the night shift. Sometimes he wonders what he could possibly do more to help. He'll be the first to admit he'd be far more comfortable apprehending criminals or even conducting autopsies than counseling someone with personal matters and substance abuse. 

But Harry's trying. So he'll try, too.

He takes a seat across from Harry's desk. Harry stirs, his face pressed to his desk. Something of his demeanor is like a bear rousing from deep sleep.

"Hey... Kim. D'you remember when we met that, that reed plasm... phan... the reed bug?"

It's pretty amazing that Harry knows who's at the table without seeing him. The detective's sixth sense is impressive, even through seven beers.

"I remember," Kim says. He finds himself fighting a smile through the frown he hadn't realized he'd been making. "I don't think I'll ever forget it in my life, detective." Not even if he went on a memory-destroying three-day drinking bender, but he'd never want to destroy a memory like that.

Harry slowly lifts his head. His eyes are red, his nose dripping, that ever-present crooked grin is on his face like a grimace of pain. Kim offers over another handkerchief. He's taken to making sure he always has one on hand.

"Did I ever tell you I, uh, I talked to it? Had a whole conversation with it about, you know, life an' death an'," he blows his nose, nosily, "And the end of the world, all that jazz. Nicest bug I've ever met in my life."

"I think you mentioned something about that," Kim says. There were many, _many_ points during the investigation where he had severe doubts about the detective's sanity but honestly? After finding the phasmid, he's prepared to accept the possibility that anything can happen. He starts to collect the empty bottles from Harry's desk.

"I talked to the nice bug," Harry waves a hand, his smile half-dazed and almost beatific. "Talked to my, my tie. Talked to the schity, sorry, city of Revachol. Talked to the hanged man. Talked to so many, maaany people―" A wider sweep of an arm, as if in demonstration. "So many people. Wild Pines. Union. Hardies. Spies. Racists. Druggies an' drunkards. They call me a human can opener... _really_? I can open people? All I'm doin' is talking. Talk to myself all the damn time. Innit it nice if we can, if we can all just solve problems by talking?"

"It would be nice," Kim says. A clink, as he deposits bottles into a stained Frittte bag.

"If we coul' all just, just _talk_ to each other―"

"If we could simply _persuade_ people not to commit crimes, our job would be much easier," he says with some amusement, but Harry doesn't appear to hear him.

He can see Harry's hand tremble, atop the surface of the desk.

"If I could just talk to her..."

 _That_ calls for an intervention.

The plastic bag falls to the ground. He takes Harry's hand in his before he could think twice and second guess his horribly lacking consoling abilities. Harry hiccups, blinks. A few miserable tears roll down his cheeks into his beard.

Kim doesn't know a lot about the ex-fiance and, out of consideration for Harry, has tried not to pry into the details. But he does know that this is the one person who has apparently, utterly defeated Harry's incredible and chaotic and unrelenting people skills. Harry is a man who can apparently talk to cryptids, to the wind, to just about _anyone_ who might already have misgivings or grudges against him and somehow eventually win them over. But he can't win back his fiance and he's destroyed maybe six years of his life in trying.

Kim has little idea how to effectively help against alcoholism. Heartbreak is even further out of his depth.

But maybe the only thing he can do is try. He squeezes the detective's hand. After a pathetic sniff, Harry squeezes back.

"You can talk to me," he says quietly. "Talk to me about anything you want. I promise I won't mind." A pause. "I might mind, but it doesn't matter. Talk to me anyway. Bother me whenever you want. You have my number, you can call me even if it's midnight or the crack of dawn. Whenever you feel like talking to―" _her_ , he's about to say, then reconsiders sharply. "Whenever you feel like drinking, talk to me."

Harry drops his head back onto the desk with a _thunk_. But he doesn't let go of Kim's hand. 

"You'll get sick of me," Harry's miserable voice says to the wooden surface. "Like Jean. Like... everyone who left the force 'cause of me." _Like her_ goes unsaid, but is far too clear for the both of them.

"Officer Vicquemare is giving you a second chance. He's given you a lot of chances, you know he wants to be there for you. As for everyone who left..." Well, certainly nobody is obligated to stick it out under an unbalanced and emotionally abusive commanding officer. He can't blame anyone for that. It’s entirely possible or even certain that Harry Du Bois had been an utter bastard in the force and it’s only by sheer coincidence that Kim had met him after he’d completely destroyed himself and tried to rebuild himself piece by piece into a better person. Maybe he never would have given Du Bois the time of day if he’d met him sooner.

But there’s no use dwelling in hypotheticals. He knows who Harry is in the here and now.

"I joined the 41st because of you," he says, after a pause. "I don't know if I can make up for losing them, but I'll damn well try."

No response, just the rise and fall of the detective's shoulders between shudders of deep misery and heartbreak. Heartbreak formidable enough to ache this deeply even after six years, heartbreak that a man would try to drown out with alcohol to the point of destroying his entire life and memory. Heartbreak this strong is more potent than a crime. Kim doesn't have any protocol or weapon that could fight it.

All he could do was hold the detective's hand. And after a moment, haltingly, awkwardly try to speak. Every sentence slow and deliberate and yet still so inadequate.

"I don't think I ever told you that I really admire you and how you talk to people. You don't always say the right thing but, well, who can say what the right thing is? I admire your persistence. I admire how you try to talk to people I would never have given a chance, like those kids behind the hotel. I could never have solved this case without you." No, that sounded too clinical, too focused on work. He tries again. "There are so many things I would never have experienced without you. I would never have seen that insect without you. I would never have danced in that church or listened to your song. I wasn't lying when I said I liked your singing, I'm serious. You can sing to me if you want. If you ever feel like being a human can opener, you can open me up―"

He cuts himself off. _That_ was more suggestive or personal than he'd intended it to be. He can only hope Harry is too inebriated to pick up on it. 

But it betrays a curiosity he'd hidden for weeks, after seeing Harry talk to so many people and open them up about so much―their politics, philosophies, families and histories, hopes and future dreams―he never quite turned that focus on Kim himself. It was convenient. It meant Kim could simply stay by his side in support while Harry conducted interviews, as absurd and unconventional as they could be. 

Harry talked to people like a mechanic opening up a piece of machinery. He could be blunt and eccentric and the very opposite of professional, but somehow he could figure out what made people _tick_ ―with the exception of Klaasje, probably, but that woman breathed lies like cigarette smoke. 

Harry's sheer interest in people was almost childlike, but laser-focus intense. Like putting a subject under a lens where he could dissect a person's motivations, insecurities, relationships, where he could compel people to sell each other out or reveal their deepest secrets.

He'd tried only once, bluntly and awkwardly, to ask Kim his, just a day or two after waking up with amnesia, and Kim had shut him down. But he wonders if Harry could take him apart now, if he really tried. He has a new secret now, one that burns in his chest like the heat of a coal or ember, a secret that aches as Harry rolls bloodshot eyes up from the desk to meet his gaze.

"I might not be a cryptid or a city, but you can talk to me."

Something flickers in the detective's liquid eyes, almost animal, only for a blink. He groans as he tries to raise himself from his sprawl over the table. No doubt his vision is spinning; Kim rises in readiness to support him.

"You don' need to be a crypt... or a city."

"I don't, do I?" he says wryly.

Harry grins that ridiculous grin. A rictus, showing teeth. "I know what you are."

He freezes. Something like anticipation runs cold down his back, even as something else smolders in his chest―the secret. He’s honest, he'll admit he wouldn't exactly mind sharing it one day, but even he knows this might be the worst time to spill. The way Harry looks at him is intent, like there are twenty gazes fixed upon him rather than just one.

"What am I?" he asks.

And then Harry sags against him. A heavy warmth, smelling of beer and tears and whatever questionable piece of clothing he'd thrifted from who-knows-where this time. He's undeniably heavier than Kim, but he finds himself wrapping an arm around to support the detective regardless.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," Harry says.

Kim lets out a breath.

The secret hums in his chest. He secures his arm around Harry, the heavy, teary, miserable warmth and weight of him.

"Let's get you back home, detective."


End file.
